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Thu, 04 Nov 2021
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Turkey interested in purchasing more state-of-the-art Russian weapon systems

Russian S400
© Rosoboronexport
The contract for Turkey to procure Russian air defence systems has been vehemently opposed by Washington, who is trying to convince Ankara to ditch it threatening the country with sanctions and freezing deliveries of F-35 fighters.

Head of Russian Defence Export firm (Rosoboronexport) Aleksandr Mikheev has shared that Turkey is showing interest in Russian weaponry apart from the S-400 air defence systems ordered by Ankara in December 2017. According to him, Ankara is also interested in other Russian air defences of various ranges, as well as anti-tank weaponry and other weapons stations.

Mikheev added that the two countries also have several joint ventures aimed at developing new state-of-the-art jets and helicopters, modules for armoured vehicles and maintenance for the equipment, previously sold to Ankara. He further stressed that due to the "constructive dialogue between the political leadership" of the two states, Russia and Turkey have managed to thwart foreign rivals' attempts to meddle in their bilateral military cooperation.

Eye 1

Suspected UAE spy arrested in Turkey commits suicide while in prison

UAE spy Sinem Koseoglu
One of two men suspected of spying for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Turkey has committed suicide in prison, state media has said.

Turkey's Haberturk news website first carried the report on Monday, with senior journalist Cetiner Cetin, who broke the story, saying the suspect hanged himself in Silivri prison on Sunday.

The suspect's death was later confirmed by the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Al Jazeera's Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said Turkish authorities would investigate how he managed to kill himself as he was being held in solitary confinement.

Video

Reports: President Xi loves Game of Thrones, says 'it shouldn't be template for international relations'

Game of Thrones
© Reuters / Phil Noble
Props are displayed on the set of ‘Game of Thrones’ television series.
Chinese President Xi Jinping loves to watch the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, but believes the brutal fictional world of Westeros shouldn't become a template for international relations, a local paper has reported.

HBO's fantasy drama, based on 'A Song of Ice and Fire' by George R. R. Martin, is as much a smash hit in China as anywhere else around the globe, despite local viewers being shown an edited version with less sex and violence.

With the show in its final season, it appears that even the Chinese leader has been unable to resist the phenomenon. However, due to his extremely busy schedule, Xi has a special - even more condensed - cut of the show prepared for him, an unnamed government official told South China Morning Post. "We call it the diamond version," he said.

Footprints

Deputy AG Rosenstein tenders resignation to White House

Rosenstein

Rod Rosenstein, United States Deputy Attorney General
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, submitted his resignation letter to the White House Monday.

It is effective May 11.

"We enforce the law without fear or favor because credible evidence is not partisan, and truth is not determined by opinion polls," Rosenstein wrote. "We ignore fleeting distractions and focus our attention on the things that matter, because a republic that endures is not governed by the news cycle."

Comment: Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton comments:




Black Magic

US-Saudi-trained terror groups target China's allies in Sri Lanka and around the world

training Salafists
As predicted, the Sri Lankan Easter Day blasts which killed hundreds and injured hundreds more - have been connected to the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS).

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka - Alaina Teplitz - would openly claim foreign groups were most likely behind the attacks. Reuters in an article titled, "Foreign groups likely behind Sri Lanka attacks, U.S. ambassador says," would report:
The scale and sophistication of the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka suggested the involvement of an external group such as Islamic State, the U.S. ambassador said on Wednesday as the death toll jumped to 359.
ISIS itself would also later claim responsibility for the attacks. The Washington Post in an article titled, "Sri Lankan Easter bombings, claimed by ISIS, show the group maintains influence even though its caliphate is gone," would claim:
On Tuesday, video emerged of the suspected ringleader of the attacks and seven followers, their faces obscured by scarves, swearing allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Islamic State also issued a formal communique asserting responsibility for the attacks, which it said targeted Christians and "coalition countries."
Absent from US diplomatic statements and Western media reports is any mention of ISIS' inception, its state sponsors, and even admissions by Western intelligence agencies themselves of Washington and its allies' role in the terrorist organization's rise.

Bad Guys

Alastair Crooke: Waivers over - Bolton gets his way

Iranian oil refinery
© AP
An Iranian oil worker rides his bicycle at a Tehran oil refinery.
Iran will not necessarily look for escalation: to wriggle through will be to win a major symbolic victory. But if it is pushed to the limit, Iran likely will first respond by pushing back in the region and in Afghanistan against US interests.

With the US decision to end the eight waivers issued in respect to the import of oil and gas from Iran on 2 May, the Trump Administration effectively is taking its first steps along the path of undeclared war on Iran: An attempt to break the morale of the Iranian people (by pushing a greater proportion of the population towards absolute poverty), and to acquiesce to terms (Pompeo's 12 conditions), which would amount to abject (and improbable) Iranian capitulation. It is a narrow path, bordered on all sides by lurking unforeseen, unforeseeable disasters - thorny thickets, in which Bolton and Pompeo may well find themselves painfully entangled. Will these steps then inevitably lead to grave escalation? They might; but also, Iran knows that if it can wriggle around these formidable impediments, and still remain standing, then Iran will stand victorious. To survive is to win. To survive will turn from Iran's to America's hurt.

Comment: See also:


Attention

Obama use of FISA-702 as a domestic political surveillance program and the secret research project

Mueller/obama/report
© Twitter
Now that we have significant research files on the 2015 and 2016 political surveillance program; which includes the trail evident within the Weissmann/Mueller report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ "secret research project" (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the entire objective and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.

Working with a timeline, but also referencing origination material in 2015/2016 - CTH hopes to show how the program operated. This explains an evolution from The IRS Files in 2010 to the FISA Files in 2016.

The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, was the primary process. We start by reviewing the established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26th, 2017; and explain the details within the FISC opinion.

I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an "institutional lack of candor" in responses to the FISA court. In essence, they were continually lying to the court about their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons' private information for multiple years.

Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer's brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we'll try to break down the language.

Top Secret FISA Court Order... View on Scribd


Comment: Are we more secure, less secure? The level of subterfuge, cover-up, deflection, obstruction, illegality, layering of false trails and the ultimate betrayal of all Americans should give us a clue.




Attention

Pro-EU Change UK is out to sea while Farage's new Brexit Party is up in the polls

Allen/Farage
© Eddie Keogh/Global Look Press/Simon Chapman
Heidi Allen MP • Nigel Farage
Change UK, the new pro-second-referendum group, has ambitions to be the political party for all 'remain' voters in May's EU Parliament elections, but why are they polling so badly?

The EU remainers' answer to Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, could not be experiencing more contrasting fortunes. While it's all smiles for Farage's slick new anti-EU party as it tops EU election opinion polls in the high 20s, Change UK (the Independent Group), is struggling to cause any political tremors with single-digit figures.


With four weeks to go until Britons head to the voting booths the new group of 11 Labour and Tory MP defectors have a lot of ground to make up, after making a series of fundamental errors.

Cell Phone

Former Georgian now US businessman claims Mueller footnote edited meaning of texts

phone/Giorgi Rtskhiladze
© Chance Yeh/Getty Imagesy
Screen shot • Giorgi Rtskhiladze
A Georgian-American businessman is accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller of "glaring inaccuracies" and sensationalizing texts about alleged salacious tapes involving Donald Trump's 2013 trip to Moscow.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday, lawyers for Giorgi Rtskhiladze demanded a retraction to a footnote in Mueller's 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The letter says the footnote includes only part of Rtskhiladze's text exchange with then-Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, failing to provide the full context. The FBI and Mueller's team "spliced the dialogue to produce the ugly insinuations and allegations of Footnote 112 to attract publicity -- all while impugning Mr. Rtskhiladze's character," according to his attorney, A. Scott Bolden.

Bolden's letter provides a fuller version of the texts. While adding more information, the messages probably won't settle speculation about possible tapes. Rtskhiladze, who had business dealings with Trump, said in an interview Wednesday that his texts had been misinterpreted to mean he'd seen and destroyed compromising tapes of Trump, when he was only conveying a rumor.


Arrow Up

EU Commissioner Oettinger: Nord Stream 2 is 'Unstoppable'

Nord Stream 2
© Nord Stream 2
Nord Stream 2 construction in Finnish waters of the Baltic Sea.
Earlier, one of top candidates for the post of European Commission president, Manfred Weber, pledged to utilise all means necessary to block the implementation of Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.

The European commissioner for budget and human resources, Gunther Oettinger, has stated in an interview with Germany's Funke media group that Nord Stream 2's construction is already "unstoppable" at the current stage, as it's almost already complete. At the same time, he insisted that once it is fully built, the pipeline still needs to operate in accordance with the amended Third Energy Package - a set of EU rules for regulating the energy market.

Oettinger pointed out that this means that there should be an independent system operator and independent transmission operators, as well as that all gas producers should have access to the pipeline. He also added that the pricing must be transparent.

The commissioner further stated that every decision of German regulatory bodies in regards to Nord Stream 2 will be scrutinised by the European Commission and will require its approval. Oettinger noted that not all of the EU energy requirements will be easily met by the Russian pipeline, expecting some obstacles to pop up.

Comment: See also: